Final Appeal

Panic floods my throat. I rise involuntarily.

There’s a shuffling outside the stall as the presence moves closer in response. I lean next to the door, every nerve taut, straining to listen.

I hear the breathing, louder now.

I look underneath the door to my stall.

Planted there is a pair of large black shoes.

A man’s.

  14

“Who’s there?” I shout, terrified.

“Are you all right?” says the man. Concerned, professional. “You’ve been in there awhile.”

“Is that you, Faber?”

“No, I’m a special agent with the FBI.”

“In a ladies’ room?” My voice clatters off the tile walls. “Go away or I’ll scream, I mean it! Right now!”

“Wait, relax. I swear to you, I am an FBI agent. Our office is here in the building. Seventh floor.”

“Anybody would know that. It’s on the directory.”

“I’m with the agency for ten years now. I trained at Quantico. Eighteen months, not counting in-service training.”

“Quantico, Virginia?” I think of the man at the memorial service, the car with the Virginia plates.

“Yes. Listen, I don’t have much time. Here’s my ID.” A hand materializes above the shoes, carrying a card- size plastic wallet.

I start to reach for it, then draw back. What if he grabs my wrist? “Drop it. Near the toilet. Now.” I sound ridiculous, even to myself.

“All right, all right.” He tosses the wallet into the stall like a Frisbee; it banks against the toilet and settles at my feet. I’m not close enough to the door for his hand to reach under, so I pick it up. My hands have stopped trembling. So has my stomach. I open the billfold like a tiny book. On one leaf is a photo of Tom Cruise and on the other is a Pennsylvania driver’s license.

“What is this, a joke? Where’s your FBI badge?”

“I can’t carry my creds, I’m undercover.”

“Sure you are. You a friend of Tom’s, too?”

“It goes with my cover. Look at the license, at least you’ll see who I am.”

I look at the driver’s license. His features are nondescript in the state-sponsored mug shot, and it says that he’s six feet one, 185 pounds. His hair is dark brown, eyes blue. It could be the man with the Virginia plates, but I had only a glimpse of him. “What’s your name?” I ask.

“It’s right on the license.”

“Maybe you stole the license. What’s your name?”

“Oh, a test. I get it. Abe Lincoln.”

“You think this is funny? You scared the shit out of me. If this is standard FBI procedure—”

“It isn’t, believe me. They’d have my ass. I wouldn’t do it unless I were absolutely desperate.”

That rings true. “So what’s your name, desperate?”

“Thaddeus Colwin.”

I strain to read the name on the driver’s license. Thaddeus Colwin III. “Thaddeus?”

“It’s Quaker.”

“A Quaker cop?”

“A good cop, a bad Quaker. Call me Winn anyway. Thaddeus is my father.”

“Wait a minute, if you’re undercover, why are you carrying around your real license?”

“I knew I’d be contacting you after the service, and I knew you’d bust my chops.”

“How’d you know that?”

“You’re a lawyer. Duh.”

Hmmm. “Do you have kids?”

“No, and my favorite color is yellow. This is getting kind of personal, isn’t it? We just met.”

A comedian. “What’s your address?”

He sighs. “Twenty-one thirty-three Adams Street, Philadelphia. Pennsylvania.”

“Social security number?”

“What?”

“Tell me your social security number or I scream.”

“What is it with you?” he says, amused no longer.

“I’m somebody’s mother, that’s what it is with me. If you kill me, my daughter’s stuck with a dog. For a father.”

“166-28-2810.”

It matches the driver’s license. Maybe he is for real. “What do you want anyway?”

“Can you come out? I need to talk to you. I don’t have much time. Somebody could’ve seen me come in here.”

“Why do I have to come out? Why can’t we talk like this?”

A huge sigh. “Artie told me you were like this.”

“Artie? Artie who?”

“Weiss. The law clerk.”

“You know Artie? How?”

“We play ball.”

“Where?”

“At the Y. Now I have three minutes left. Will you please open the goddamn door?”

“Where did Artie go to school, if you know him so well?”

“That’s a no-brainer, it’s the first thing he tells anybody. Now open the door, I’m backing up against the wall. See?”

I look through the slit but see only the dark edge of a coat. “Go over to the sink and turn the water on. Keep pressing on the faucet top, so I know you’re at the other end of the room, away from the door.”

“Very clever. You go to Harvard too?” I hear the sound of footsteps, then the water being turned on.

“Are you pushing the top?”

“What?” he shouts. “You know I can’t hear you when the water’s running.”

I’m beginning to hate this guy. I open the thumbscrew and peek out of the door. I freeze on the spot. I can’t believe my eyes.

It’s Shake and Bake. He’s standing at the faucet in the ladies’ room, complete with beard, cellophane rain bonnet, and black raincoat.

My God. A paranoid schizophrenic. I slam the door closed and bolt it. He must have stolen the driver’s license. “Get out! You’re not supposed to be in the courthouse! I’m going to scream!”

“Fuck!” I hear him shout. I look through the crack and watch him release the faucet in disgust, then slap it. “Fucking fuck!”

“You’re not allowed in here!”

He turns toward the closed door. “It is me, I’m with the FBI,” he says, in a voice as cultivated as someone named Thaddeus Colwin III would have. “Look, I ran the water, didn’t I? Would a crazed killer do that? Open the door. Please.”

“You? Shake and Bake? A federal agent?” I watch him through the crack.

“Open the door,” he says. He slips the rain bonnet off the back of his head like a major leaguer after a strikeout. “Please.”